Mihika's Tiffin Box |. S.3, Issue 01
Knock, knock! Your box of yummies is back.
Hola folks!
A warm (only in hugs, not in soaring temperatures) welcome back to all of you. I am ecstatic to be here again with some old and fresh threads to offer a little respite from all things doom in the world.
Don’t you feel like getting out on your balcony and screaming out, "What the absolute hell is happening?” No matter where you look, things and people and governments and leaders seem to be ramming their heads into a dead end, hoping to find a portal into the next stage, ready with a whole new sack of worms. And in this hula-hoop of kalyug, I find myself obsessively doomscrolling, reading news articles that are written to provoke, losing sanity every second of every day, like back-to-back Science and Maths classes that made you crave the recess more than anything else.
So here’s your break, your Tiffin Box packed with carefully curated and handpicked stories, anecdotes, little nuggets of information and all things light-hearted and fun to make your days a little better…hopefully!
Allow me to take you through the sections that you’ll see in the Third Season of the Tiffin Box. Let’s dive in.
Beginning of this year’s summer, we were in India and Prakhar—my husband—suddenly demanded “Rasna!”. Oh, the sweet, orange drink, the mere sight of which was enough to get us all excited and jumpy.
So we started hunting shops. And guess what, we found Rasna. We rushed home and on a hot afternoon, we opened the packet and… “WHAT!”
I don’t know if you guys remember, but back in the 90s/early 2000s, Rasna wasn’t an instant mix like we found it out to be now. Rasna used to come in a box with some kind of powder and one tiny bottle of concentrate. There was a whole procedure: sugar had to be dissolved in water in a big pan, then the powder and concentrate had to be mixed and then strained to get two bottles of “syrup”. To make a consumable glass, one had to pour a little bit of this syrup and top it with chilled water and ice.
SO DELICIOUS!
SO ECONOMICAL!
(That second part was the reason for the whole of the salaried class in India to blindly trust this drink for adults and children alike.)
Nostalgia makes you rubbish all things “now”, doesn’t it? But I swear, the syrup concoction hit a whole other level of satiation that the instant powder mix of today can’t dream of reaching. It is all but trying to be something it is not. I hope it can live with that. :D
“I love you, Rasna!”
(IYKYK)
Europe is a treasure chest that keeps giving. If you ask TripAdvisor for a list of things to do or rely on Google, all cities are the same: a main square, a river, synced-up buildings alongside that river, a cruise that takes you around, a cathedral, tall monuments that you can climb to get a view of the city…you get the drift.
But the moment you ditch the trails, it’s a different world altogether. Anytime we pick a city, we start our research with Google. A skim through the list convinces us that we don’t want to visit most of those places. Having been around for a few years, we know better than to pay money to climb god-knows-how-many-stairs to get to the top of the monuments to get an aerial view (overhyped nine out of ten times) of the city. And don’t get me wrong, I am a checklist kind of traveller too. But there is merit in stepping off the beaten path. Here are some notes from our travelling bible:
Atlas Obscura: Looking for offbeat things to do? Check out the recommendations on this website. If you happen to find a hidden gem, you can also add it to their existing repertoire. We’ve ended up in curious nooks with an interesting story to tell, thanks to this website.
Google Map trumps Google Search: If you have the skills and the patience, raw-dog your way through the map. My husband excels at it and takes us to places no one can recommend off the top of their heads. All you need to do is zoom in. Check out places marked with a camera icon, or if you see a trail, follow it. See a patch of sand beyond the cliffs, go for it! In our experience, it gets challenging every now and then, but the rewards at the end are super worth it.
Don’t hop, skip and jump just because you can: It took us time to digest how close and convenient it is to get from one city to another, to skip countries within a few hours and have the opportunity of adding multiple flags to your Instagram bio because you have geographically been in many countries. In my opinion, pick a city (not a country) and stay for a minimum of 4 days. And then take small day trips to neighbouring villages and sites. It takes the pressure off of packing, checking in and out, packing-unpacking and settling.
Unless it’s purely for the joy of road trips that you’re traversing through the veins of Europe. That’s a whole other ball game.
This section is ESPECIALLY open for all of you to send me stories, pictures, anecdotes, videos or whatever else of your furry friends, irrespective of whether they live in your house, or just in your heart.
I saw this post on Instagram about this guy’s dog who carries a dinosaur plushie named Reassurus Rex. Where did the plushie come from, how it became an inseparable part of his life and how it got a rebirth is a story you all should read. Leaving a link below:
For the next time, I’ll introduce you to Olive, my Parisian chat noir. And maybe tell you about her clumsy shenanigans.
[MOVIE] Toothless will steal your heart in every format
How to Train Your Dragon | In Theatres | IMDB: 8.1/10: Toothless is back! And so are Hiccup, Astrid and friends. I am not a big fan of live-action remakes. There is no real need to retell a story that has achieved its pinnacle of storytelling and cuteness in animation. I watch them all, don’t get me wrong. But I haven’t cared for any until How to Train Your Dragon, which has just hit cinemas (if it hasn’t in your country, it soon will).
I felt like they borrowed some raw files from Team Avatar, but a screen full of flying dragons effectively came through. Toothless is adorable (I was really worried, they’ll get that bit wrong). They—thankfully—haven’t gone overboard with effects and have kept the charm of the Viking era intact. All in all, I cried…again. Jumped in joy…again. And enjoyed the movie like I hadn’t watched it before. Highly recommend.
This newsletter is an ever-changing, ever-expanding space to share things we love. If you’d like to contribute to future issues, please email me at mihikajindal@gmail.com. The more the voices, the richer this sharing experience.
Ciao! Until next time! <3
ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER
This newsletter attempts to create shared experiences and talk about them at length. Since we are perpetually searching for ways to keep ourselves entertained, I hope this fortnightly newsletter opens doors to recommendations, stories, experiences and banter. You’ll find me in your inbox every alternate Friday with this TIFFIN BOX ready to be opened, savoured, shared, or passed on to someone likely to like what it offers.
Bon retour, we missed you 🥰
Awesome 👍